Featured Images

Camlachie Tam

Mitchell Library, Glasgow Collection

"Camlachie Tam", a song preserved in a scrapbook entitled Old Glasgow Street Songs etc, 1850 which is held at the Mitchell Library.

This song contains the comic observations of Camlachie Tam who worked at Dixon's Ironworks in Govanhill. The City of Glasgow Union Railway Bridge was built in 1870. Tam's fears for the safety of passengers crossing the Clyde were prescient – the bridge across the Tay collapsed in 1879, plunging a train into the river and killing seventy-nine people.

Geordie Geddes was the Glasgow Humane Society's officer, who rescued thirty-five people from the River Clyde between 1845 and 1860. The song includes references to the proprietor and the manager of the theatre in which the song was performed.

Reference: GC 398.5 GLA

Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Libraries Information and Learning